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Nature and Language
Eyad Mustafa
In Nature, Emerson discusses the relationship between nature and language: Words represent objects in nature; these individual objects signify spiritual realities; and nature symbolizes spirituality.
“An enraged man is a lion, a cunning man is a fox, a firm man is a rock, a learned man is a torch.” (Emerson 1715)
In the above quote by Emerson, he explains how language is used to describe things in nature. Each one is associated with an object and it shows the qualities each posses in order to get a certain spirit in nature. He assumes that these correspondences with nature and language are universal and understood by everyone. Emerson’s theme of universal understanding is brought up again when he claims that each individual shares a universal soul linking that person to all others, as well as to the whole of nature.
“Man is conscious of a universal soul within or behind his individual life; This universal soul, he call Reason: it is not mine, or thine, or his, but we are its; we are its property and men.” (Emerson 1715)
“And the blue sky in which the private earth is buried, the sky with its eternal calm, and full or everlasting orbs, is the type of Reason. That which, intellectually considered, we call Reason, considered in relation to nature, we call Spirit. Spirit is the creator, and hath life in itself.” (Emerson 1715)
The picture above shows nature and spirit together. The light shining down above from the universe is slightly blocked by trees and gives a feeling of spirit by the way the light is shining through.
The True Beauty of Snow in Nature
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6637514714554013381&ei=VUNxS8HsGtr5lAfQ-429CQ&q=emersons+the+snow+storm&hl=en#
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/72/DialJan1920.jpg
Emerson’s “Snow Storm” was written in 1833-34 and was published in the first volume of a transcendental magazine called The Dial in 1841. This magazine was edited by Margaret Fuller and Ralph Waldo Emerson. It ended in 1844 but not before it published four volumes. In 1880 The Dial was brought back to life by authors who wrote politics, literature, and criticisms and ceased its publications in 1929.[1]
This poem is a praise to the snow and the handiwork that it demonstrates on the nature that was once bare. He uses words like “furnished” with tile, “fierce” artificer, “fanciful”, and savage to describe this seemingly normal result of precipitation and low temperature. What we see as a something that just comes with the seasons is actually something more. It comes down and “curves his bastions with projected roof”. The snow, or nature itself is referred to as HE. Emerson chose to personify it by stating that nature is and architect that is acting upon the earth with purpose.
“Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work so fanciful, so savage, naught he cares for number or proportion.[2]” He personifies nature not only because it is actively decorating its canvas but also uses words like speeding, fanciful and savage to stress the unpredictable action and character of the snow and nature itself.
[1] http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=thedial
[2] Emerson, The Snow Storm, lines 15-17
Image Gloss: Pleachèd in Emerson
Days
Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,
And marching single in an endless file,
Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.
To each they offer gifts after his will,
Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all.
I, in my pleachèd garden, watched the pomp,
Forgot my morning wishes, hastily
Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day
Turned and departed silent. I, too late,
Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Pleach- (ˈplēch, ˈplāch) tr.v. – To plait or interlace (branches or vines, for example)
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Pleaching is a gardening technique used to form walls and archways. Trees are planted 7 to 8 feet apart in between horizontal rails. As the tree grows the branches are bent and tied together to form a single tree. With patient care and a tremendous amount of pruning, a wall will begin to form. When the trees become wider and heavier, the rails are then removed.
During Medieval Europe pleaching had a practical used. Trees were planted in a grid-like formation and as they grew the branches of one tree intertwined with that of a neighboring tree. Once the trees had grown to a significant size, planks were then placed across them. Huts were then built eight to ten feet above the flood line. They would also pleach bridges from one hut to the other.
It was not until the 17th century that pleaching became an art form. It was very popular in the French and English gardens. They contained pleached walls, archways, fences and even summer houses.
In his poem Days, Emerson’s uses the image of a “pleachèd garden” to illustrate his feelings of encompassment by a synthetic creation of man.
_________________Works Cited_______________
http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/rwemerson/bl-rwemer-days.htm
http://www.ehow.com/how_2087307_grow-pleached-trees.html
http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/good_wood/pleachng.htm
http://wordsmith.org/words/images/topiary_large.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28943931@N08/3274694644/?edited=1
Image Gloss One
Stephen DeLuise
Image Gloss I
The harp is the travelling patterer for the Universe’s Insurance Company, recommending its laws, and our little goodness is all the assessment that we pay. Transcendentalism is the belief in nature and harmony. Everything revolves around Nature and how it Nature interacts with our lives and everything else living in the universe. The harp is a stringed instrument that makes a beautiful sound when plucked. Thoreau making the connection of the harp and the universe is very enlightening. Recently there has been a theory called the string theory.
String theory is the basic idea that our universe and everything in our reality is on frequencies or wavelengths. When a string is plucked it creates frequencies, like notes in music. String theory opens the door for what our universe and our reality really is. Theoretically this theory is like the Universe’s song. If we can manipulate frequencies then possibly we can change our reality or see it for what it really is. The idea of string theory may be recent but maybe Thoreau said it first.
Thoreau had the genius to make the complex connection of how strings make a frequency and how it is the primary function of the universe. If Thoreau just learned this from being in Nature then maybe Nature is all that we should all try to understand. The string connects from one point to another and I think Thoreau feels the same about our Universe. Nature is the universe, the natural order of things. To Thoreau understanding Nature is the way of understanding everything. Our lives are in the music of the universe. Thoreau had a profound sense of connections to everything. Even though modern science has just discovered string theory, Thoreau said it first. It is amazing that Thoreau was almost one hundred years ahead of his time scientifically. Thoreau just being in Nature was enough for him to make the connection that every particle in our universe is connected to everything and each other. His explanation of Nature is reassuring because he thinks that Nature is the higher order of things. This was his greater power, what he answered to, not God but Nature.
Image of forests throughout Emerson
The image of a forrest is one which Emerson uses to portray a solitude and self reliance (hence the title of his essay “Self Reliance”). The objective is to prove that we are individuals; there is no real novelty to this idea. We are individuals, this is simple and true; however, what we do with individuality is something different in its entirety. As we know, Emerson was an individual whose dedication to God and the church was comprised of his meandering down a path in a forrest, moss-laden and beautiful, not quite against God, just radical to His public perception.
Public perception we find in our everyday life, we deal with how we should look, how we should speak, how we should feel, and how we should act. “We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents,” (p. 1). We fear that what we think and feel and do will not be what complies with the rest of the world (which, you could say, is why there is such a thing as a “mob mentality”). We get into this pattern of following other people, but where does that take the world? It is not those who comply with public perception that do great things, but instead the genius that is shunned and not realized until his work has undoubtedly survived him (take, for example, Emily Dickinson’s work: never appreciated in her lifetime, celebrated in her absence). “It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude” (p. 3).
Fear, fear of self, fear of persecution, is what keeps us from doing this. “But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future,” (p. 8). Why are we creatures built in such a way that we allow that fear to overcome what we feel to be, what we know to be right and good? This is why it is important that people have individual thoughts and feelings, and that they take individual actions to realize such unique ideologies.
It matters not what happened yesterday, and matters not what will happen further in your lifetime, only what is happening in the present, what glorifies what deity you may have, and what preserves the beauty surrounding you so that those who come after will be able to grow and expand, much like moss on a rock, to be nourished and to flourish. This is where we parallel with nature and the forrest the most. Although we are all our own people, each standing as an individual tree, bush, or berry, we create one forrest, one beautiful entirety. Consciousness, however, gives us the ability to understand that individuality, for without such things as consciousness and individuality we as a society would be fruitless.
Click here for Keynote Presentation on this Image Gloss.
Margaret Fuller and Seneca Falls
Margaret Fuller (Plumbe)
Though we have not discussed Margaret Fuller much yet, her contribution to literature should not be overlooked. Her words were quite influential, including her book Women in the Nineteenth Century. One quote that stuck with me as I read is the following:
“What Woman needs is not as a woman to act or rule, but as a nature to grow, as an intellect to discern, as a soul to live freely and unimpeded, to unfold such powers as were given her when we left our common home.” (Fuller)
Fuller means that women need to “grow.” They need to evolve out of who they’ve always been and explore themselves. They need to “live freely” without being restrained by what men and society think, and need to expand their roles. It became a “classic of feminist thought,” and would go on to pave the way for the Seneca Falls Convention three years later(“Margaret Fuller”).
The Declaration of Sentiments ("The Seneca Falls Convention (Reason)...")
Many not be aware of the significance of this women’s rights convention. It took place in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York and produced “The Declaration of Sentiments.” Organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, 68 women and 32 men signed the document that pushed for women’s suffrage (“The Seneca Falls Convention”).
Oh, it’s set in 1848 in the crush of New York state
And the thing about destiny is it never ever makes mistakes
Susan B. Anthony
Forever haunting me
Owned raped sold and thrown
A woman was never her own
And they cried freedom, rise up for me
They cried freedom, rise up for me
Check it out
Yeah, I want I want I want I want I want
Yeah, I want I want I want I want I want
Yeah
Oh, it’s set in 1848 in the crush of New York state
And the thing about destiny is it never ever sets you free
Elizabeth Cady
Forever reminding me
I don’t steal the air I breathe
Freedom, rise up for me
Freedom, rise up for me
Yeah, I want I want I want I want I want
Yeah, I want I want I want I want I want
Freedom, rise up for me
Freedom, rise up for me
Works Cited:
Fuller, Margaret. “FULLER–WOMAN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, Part 1.” Virginia Commonwealth University. American Transcendentalism Web. 08 Feb. 2010 http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/fuller/woman1.html.
“Margaret Fuller.” Virginia Commonwealth University. American Transcendentalism Web. 08 Feb. 2010 http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/fuller/.
Plumbe, John. Fuller Daguerreotype. Digital image. Web. 8 Feb. 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:FullerDaguerreotype.jpg.
Seneca Falls. Perf. The Distillers. You Tube. 5 May 2009. 8 Feb. 2010 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAVb_4Cwa3Q.
“THE DISTILLERS – SENECA FALLS LYRICS.” Sing365.com. 08 Feb. 2010 http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Seneca-Falls-lyrics-The-Distillers/F14927CEB0DC9C0648256C210023C825.
“The Seneca Falls Convention.” The National Portrait Gallery. 08 Feb. 2010 http://www.npg.si.edu/col/seneca/senfalls1.htm.
“The Seneca Falls Convention (Reason): American Treasures of the Library of Congress.” Library of Congress Home. 21 Nov. 2002. Library of Congress. 08 Feb. 2010 http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trr040.html.
My Walden
I think it came from my parents who both grew up near it, but anytime I need a place to relax and be able to think about anything and everything I go to the beach. Like Thoreau surveying the farms and imagining what it would be like to live there I have imagined what it would be like to live on the beaches I have been. Florida, Virginia, and California are all nice, but the New Jersey shore is like my second home. Whether it is random day trips, weekends on my dads boat, and family vacations I spend a lot of time at the beach. Though the closest it is not my favorite place to be able to go and get lost in my thoughts, for that North Carolina is my favorite place to go.
The open beach with room to breather unlike the over crowded beaches in N.J. allows you to fill your senses with everything the beach has to offer. No families stuck in your view of the open ocean or miles of sand and dunes to fill you sight. No amusement park music or screaming kids in the way of the waves crashing ashore. The fresh air and sea smell unblocked by the boardwalk food. All these things block the relaxing vibe the beach has to offer.
Thoreau says, “Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life?” (p. 1883) and I feel I can understand this at the beach. No job to worry about, no need for money to spend, what am I doing, or where am I going. I can sit back in the heat of the sun and get lost in the meditating waves with just the thoughts in my head. At night it seems as though the beach has quitted down, as the waves seem to not be their rough self. The moon shining it’s calming blue glow on the water and sand giving a little light to everything around. While I am stuck in everyday life of worries of school, work, and things to do I always remember the one place I can go if I need to get back with my thoughts, my Walden, the beach.
Photos from: http://www.banteringboys.co.uk/a_2147.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2083/2224802602_63ef2f3275.jpg
Sleepers
…every few years a new lot is laid down and run over; so that, if some have the pleasure of riding on a rail, others have the misfortune to be ridden upon. And when they run over a man that is walking in his sleep, a supernumerary sleeper in the wrong position, and wake him up, they suddenly stop the cars, and make a hue and cry about it, as if this were an exception (Thoreau, Walden)
Thoreau and the transcendentalists viewed nature as pure spirituality. We are all born as a part of nature, but we are also born into a society that will try to pry us from nature. Society as a whole, at least in Thoreau’s line of thinking, seeks to use nature for its own purposes. We are not satisfied with the environment around us, but instead we break apart the natural environment to create systems of transportation and living; we create our own unnatural environment.
Just as the trees of the natural environment are used for sleepers to support our trains, we are being used to support the people at the top (whoever they are), and we are only useful when we are dulled down.
Nature is very much alive and awake. Society as Thoreau sees it is a dead thing. He likens society run by government to a machine.
Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine (Thoreau, Resistance to Civil Government)
This “machine” idea is still very much with us. Even if Thoreau’s version of transcendentalism failed to stop systematic development over top of nature, it has succeeded in becoming a part of pop culture and making a huge impact on our mass consciousness.
–Benjamin Rathbone
Bibliography:
http://www.railwaysleeper.com/KFrailwaysleepers-size%20and%20weight.htm
http://www.northalabamarailroadmuseum.com/othereqip.htm
The Rhodora
For my first image gloss, I wanted to take a look at the Rhodora flower as pictured in the poem of the same name by Ralph Waldo Emerson. In the poem, written in the easy-to-follow iambic pentameter, Emerson provides the reader with a stark contrast of the vivid purple Rhodora flower blooming after a long winter and the stark landscape. Emerson also contrasts the Rhodora with the Cardinal, a common, brilliant red bird which happened to be present in the New England woods along with the Rhodora when Emerson wrote the poem.
I had never heard of or seen a Rhodora before reading this poem, but an internet search quickly turned up many pictures and information on the plant. The Rhodora is in the same family as the Rhododendron.
Most rhododendrons have regularly shaped flowers whereas Rhodora has an irregularly shaped split corolla (flower). These differences contributed to botanists formerly classifying this plant as Rhodora canadense rather than including it in the genus Rhododendron….In the wild at lower elevations as Emerson noted, Rhodora is found in swamps, bogs, and hammocks blooming pink-purple in early spring when the plant is still surrounded by but not standing in water.
It is not surprising then that Emerson noted “the damp nook” that his particular Rhodora grew in, as the Rhodora prefers damp places. Another fact that would provide Emerson with an eye-catching view of the Rhodora is the fact that it can bloom with no green leaves present, as he describes in the poem.
Emerson goes on to tell of the Cardinal coming to bathe in a pool by the Rhodora. Interestingly, Emerson finds more beauty in the purple of the flower than the red hue of the male Cardinal.
I found this statement by Emerson to be puzzling, especially because at first glance the Cardinal stands out to the eye much more in my opinion, as red is more brilliant than purple. Still, one must remember that Emerson, as a transcendentalist, admired Nature as a whole and an idea, and as a vehicle to idealism. That said, the Rhodora as a plant would give more inspiration to Emerson then the same as a common bird, as the Rhodora represents much of what Emerson wrote about in his essays. Nature is described by Emerson as something which changes from being observed by the generic man to something which is experienced, as well as an organic force. The Rhodora therefore provides Emerson with a view of Nature as he defines it- as something to behold with an open mindset, flowing from the external to the internal and moving from the merely picturesque into the sublime.
Bibliography (Websites where the above images were found)
1. http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/onrhodora.html
2. http://www.mustila.com/english/rhododendrons.htm
3. http://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/blob/master/2008-10-31/songs_of_the_cardinal.markdown
4. http://sherryandrea.com/2009/04/25/cardinal-totem-symbolism-and-meaning/
American Renaissance II 
